


hallucinate a shady grove

by WolffyLuna



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Aman (Tolkien), Cousin Incest, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Guilt, M/M, Pining, Re-Embodiement, Reconciliation, Suicidal Ideation, the halls of waiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:48:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22598074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolffyLuna/pseuds/WolffyLuna
Summary: Maeglin re-embodies (somewhat against his will), and finds himself staying in the forge of another smith.
Relationships: Celebrimbor | Telperinquar/Maeglin | Lómion, Minor Aredhel & Maeglin
Comments: 10
Kudos: 111
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	hallucinate a shady grove

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Zdenka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zdenka/gifts).



> A note on the suicidal ideation tag: Maeglin spends portions of the fic not particularly wanting to be alive (...when he's already dead), or not particularly wanting to exist. I have tagged this as suicidal ideation, as I imagine that while those are not necessarily _standard_ forms of it, people who would be bothered by it may be bothered by this fic.

Maeglin had been in the Halls of Mandos a long time. He wasn’t sure how long. He hadn’t exactly been keeping track.

He’d spent a long time trying not to exist. After his death, he’d curled up in a dark corner of the Halls, and willed himself into not _being_ as much as possible. It did not work, obviously, he still existed, but it worked better than it would have outside Mandos’ realm. The Halls were not as malleable as anything of Irmo’s, but perception and desire did get some of a say. If he did not wish for anything but to be _gone_ , or if not gone than at least _left alone_ , and did not wish to perceive anything, then he would be left alone with nothing to see or hear or feel at all.

It could not last forever. Eventually, an inchoate desire for rest become a bed underneath him, and a thread of boredom was answered with books and tools and voices just outside a newly created door.

But he’d lost track of time during his attempts at non-being, and did not see much point finding it again. It wasn’t ever going to matter. It wasn’t like he’d ever leave and have cause to ask ‘by the way, what year is it?’ He’d betrayed a whole city to Morgoth—and you didn’t come back from that. Neither from the Halls, nor the sin.

He’d calculated his death toll compared to Fëanor’s, as a baseline comparison to someone who was certainly never going to come back to the living. He had repeated the maths over and over again, changing estimates of harm and coefficients of responsibility, repeating it in endless permutations until he made his death toll as worse as possible.

(It hurt. Of course it did. But if he wanted it not to hurt, well, he should have thought about it before he caused the deaths of all those people.)

He took then to the tools and to metaphor, trying to burn the impurity of spirit that lead him to Morgoth like it was so much ore, trying to fold his soul into something stronger like poor quality steel—but even in Mandos’ realm, metaphor did not rule completely. He just ended up waving hammer and tongs about like a fool, and achieved naught for his fëa. But that did not stop him from trying. Not for a while.

But eventually, he stopped. He set down the tools on a bench that had popped into existence years (months? Decades? He was trying to avoid considering time) ago, sat down on an even older bed, and put his head in his hands.

He was always going to have betrayed Gondolin. There was no way around that. He’d betrayed the city, and killed many, and there was no way to go back and make that _unhappen_.

It was what it was.

…it was strangely comforting. The inevitability of it. He could not change it, because it had already happened. He could only move forward, and it would always be behind him—but it would always be behind him. The fact he had once done it was a character flaw, an unforgivable sin, but it was not unforgiveable that he could not change that fact.

He could live with himself, like that. If it was a _thing that happened that he could not change._ He could live with himself, being the person who had done that once, because he didn’t have another choice option.

He lifted his head—

\--and saw a plain of tough grass and dunes spread out before him. Salt flowed on the wind that blew from behind him. Scraggly bushes clung to the sand, using the grass as a poor wind break.

Was this what coasts were like? Why had Mandos decided he wanted, or would find it character building, or whatever criteria, to be on the coast.

He breathed in—and realised he had to. He had been holding his breath, and his chest had been growing tight from lack of air, and he had to breathe.

…no, that could not be the case. You didn’t have to breathe in the Halls—

He put two fingers under his jaw, to check, even though it felt foolish and stupid to check because he couldn’t be _out_. 

A traitorous pulse beat beneath them.

He was alive.

He wanted to scream. He had expected—he expected to be asked, or something! To have some sort of warning or request or something he could deny, not to just be—be tossed, unceremoniously outside the Halls. He hadn’t asked for this! He didn’t want this!

What was Mandos even thinking? What strange, alien criteria had he used? He couldn’t think of any definition that he made him worthy of re-embodiment. …except maybe ‘would not immediately throw themselves off the nearest high place if re-embodied.’ Which was a plausible explanation, but really cast doubt on Mandos’ judgment skills. (If he other work he had done had counted, maybe this would make more sense. But his attempts at reforging himself hadn’t _done_ anything, so he doubted that.)

He sighed, and picked himself up off the ground. If he was going to be forced to live, then he would live.

He brushed the sand off the back of his robes. They were undyed, and made out of a rectangle of cloth folded in half and stitched together, but it was better than being naked.

A bag swung off his shoulder. So, Mandos had seen fit to give him clothes and supplies. That seemed unusually generous from the Vala who had just dumped him alive on a beach without his permission.

The bag contained another robe, and a set of under clothes. It was reasonable, generic, the sort of thing you’d automatically give someone. The multi-purpose knife was also arguably in the ‘the sort of thing you’d give anybody’ category.

He reached the bottom of the bag. It held a small collection of forge tools, several iron bars, and a piece of dark stone. He picked up the rock to get a closer look, but he knew what it was as soon as he felt it in his hand.

The rock was threaded with veins, dark and weathered and full of pits and pores.

He’d seen stone like this many times before.

It was a rock from the Anghabar iron laterite. Ore from just outside Gondolin, in the mountains he was never meant to be in. Not the ore that he had found when he was captured, but a unit that sat close.

He almost threw the rock away from himself in disgust. How dare Mandos. _How dare he_. To take a symbol of his greatest failure, to take a piece of lost Gondolin, and put it in his bag. ( ~~How dare he notice him, pay attention, know that he would want a piece of that rock.)~~

He didn’t throw it, and clutched it tight to his chest to stop himself. He’d—he’d missed that rock. He’d missed real rock, natural rock with features he could look at say that is ore, and that is not ore. He’d missed the hills around Gondolin, rich with laterite and skarn and banded iron and all those things weathered by Ulmo’s rains into something richer. Things he could never get back, lost on the other side of the sea, thanks to his own actions.

He couldn’t risk losing it in the dunes and sharp grasses.

He walked forward, for lack of something better to do, clutching that rock like a child’s comfort object. It was stupid—but he was alone on this beach, with no one to judge him. No one would see or care about how he held a rock. He walked blindly forward, not knowing the geography of Aman, and not knowing where to go regardless of that.

He could look for his family. …No. They would either reject him—and they would be right to do that, as much as he did not know whether he would survive that—or they would welcome him back, and that meant they did not understand what he had done. Neither option was acceptable.

So, he wandered.

He wandered until he reached a small village on the shores of an estuary. A motley collection of elves, bakers and parents and children and artists, strolled down the main street. A few looked up at him—and merely nodded at him in greeting, with no sigh of recognition.

He kept walking, a strange thrill going through him. None of these people knew who he was. They could not judge him. They should, they should judge and shun him and drive him out—but they couldn’t. They didn’t know him. He was merely a new stranger, passing through, or possibly going to stay. He knew he should tell them, run through the streets shouting his name and his crimes. They deserved to know. And what if they found out who he was later, and felt betrayed, and cast him out just as he has gotten comfortable? They would be right to do so.

…but what if they never did? What if they never realised who he was? What if he could be a past-less stranger, for the rest of the years of Arda?

It wasn’t a thing he should want, but he did.

Smoke drifted through a chimney, black with coal soot. Metal hissed as it was plunged into cold oil. This little village was just big enough to fit a smithy in it, apparently.

He walked towards the its doors. He had been told by one of the exiles that back in Valinor, every forge was open to any given the permission of the head smith, and the head smith rarely did not give permission. At the time, he had assumed it was mere nostalgia, not the way it had really worked in practice.

…but his hands itched with the desire to make something, to be used in craft, and it seemed harmless enough to ask. (They wouldn’t know who he was.)

He tapped on the door frame.

The smith was concentrating, letting the blade for a scythe cool from red hot to cold silver, as it hissed and bubbled in a bucket of oil. The smith was tall and dark haired, and when he looked up, his eyes shone with the light of those born under the trees. “Yes?”

“I was wondering if your forge was open,” he asked flatly.

The smith put down the blade, and wiped his hands off on a rag. “Of course, yes.” He paused, looking over Maeglin. “Did you just leave the Halls?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Does it matter?”

“Not really. Just curious as to why I hadn’t seen you around here before. …and why you are dressed like that.” He shrugged. “But I would not mind the company, either way.”

“If you want to company, you’d best find someone else. I am not the most—” he tried to think of a diplomatic way to put it, a way that sold himself at least a little bit, “—voluble.”

He held up his hands. “Then let your work do the speaking for you! I find with most smiths, their works speaks clearer than their mouths.”

“That seems true enough. And if you wish to converse with my work, I expect you would find that more enlightening than with my voice.”

He smiled, lopsidedly. “Really?” He held out a hand to shake. “Celebrimbor.”

Maeglin grasped his hand. He was obviously born in Aman, which meant he was Noldor or Vanyar, but he used a Sindarin name. Noldor, then, and maybe not proud of it. He filed that away for later.

…what to call himself? He couldn’t very well announce himself as Maeglin, traitor of Gondolin.

…But it would be wrong to lie.

Few had ever called him this name. It was in a banned tongue, and never fitted as well as Sharp Glance (or fitted too well, some might say.) But it was his name, and it would not be a lie to call himself it. “Lómion,” he offered.

* * *

He stayed with Celebrimbor for some time. He slept in a hammock set up in a spare room, and did his best to earn his keep (as much as earning one’s keep made sense in Valinor, the land of plenty.) They worked together in the forge, both separately and as close collaborators.

Celebrimbor gave no sign of expecting him to move on, which Maeglin appreciated. He had no desire to leave—both because he did not have anywhere else he could go, but also because Celebrimbor was good company. A bit chatty—but his works spoke well. They spoke of skill and experience and attention to detail and a slight tendency to try and smith things one was meant to make some other way.

And he knew dwarven techniques, which was surprising— _where did he learn them?_ Maeglin wondered—but spoke well for his character. If the dwarves trusted him with their art… the dwarves were not always perfect judges of character (see: himself), but they were quite good.

And he was interested in what Maeglin had to teach. They were equally skilled, he’d say, but their skills ran along slightly different lines, used slight variations in technique, which Celebrimbor was eager to learn.

Celebrimbor avoided the topic of Maeglin’s past. Maybe he should not have appreciated that, but he did. He had noticed that Maeglin did not speak of it, and so he did not bring it up, and his discretion was an admirable character trait.

He should tell him, Maeglin thought. Should tell him what he had done. But he couldn’t bring himself too, and without being asked, he did not have to lie.

There was one thing that confused Maeglin about Celebrimbor—other than the dwarven teachings, but those played on his mind less. Celebrimbor was well liked in the village, and he had friends, but he did not seem to have any family. No parents, or spouse, or adult children, or siblings, or anything of the sort. In Beleriand, that would not have been surprising—many a young exile travelled on their lonesome, and made a point to not get married or raise children during war.

But here in Aman, it raised the question of where they were. The question of whether they were avoiding each other, and if that was the case, who was avoiding who. He had been in Celebrimbor’s house for months, and no family had ever appeared, nor where there any mentions of going to travel to them.

He should not have asked. (Discretion _was_ admirable.) He would not have appreciated being asked by Celebrimbor. But he wondered. Had his family died, he was he merely the first out, and missed his family terribly but obviously could not see them while they were in the Halls? Or, had he been cast out? (Maeglin both feared and wished for the latter. If Celebrimbor had been cast out, it must have been for a high crime, and he should not be around him. But equally, if he had been cast out—there would be a certain kinship there. Maeglin longed for it, foolishly, lacking any other kinship he could reach for.)

Still, if curiosity was going to get the better of him, he was going to ask in the most diplomatic way possible. He scribbled a design to etch on the hilt of a dagger, looping swirls of vines and leaves and fruits. “Are you planning to see your family later this year?”

Celebrimbor didn’t look up from the horseshoe blanks he was hammering into shape. “They’re mostly still in the Halls, I think.” He said flatly, matter-of-fact—but it was not a _chipper_ matter-of-fact.

“Ah. That’s unfortunate,” Maeglin said, the sympathy sitting heavy in his mouth.

Celebrimbor plunged the shoes into the bucket of water, more harshly than he usually would. His shoulders were tense as he handled the tongs. “Even if they were out, I doubt any of us would want to meet. We did not part on the best of terms.” He shrugged. It was a pained, angry shrug, with an air of ‘it is what it is.’

He looked over his shoulder at Maeglin, deliberately softening his face. “And you?”

He wouldn’t lie. He would not do anyone that wrong, of lying to their face, even as he dodged the truth. “I imagine more of them would be out of the Halls, but I doubt they would want to see me either.” His family were either Sindar, who would judge his choice of running off to be a Noldor prince, or they were of Gondolin which he betrayed, or perhaps they had stayed on this side of the sea, in which case he was merely a traitorous stranger.

“It’s their loss.”

Maeglin blinked. “Pardon?”

“Maybe I don’t know you as well as them,” he said, somehow sounding like he doubted that. “But from what I’ve seen, if they don’t want to see you, that’s a sign of incredibly poor taste.”

Maeglin watched himself wring his fingers. “There’s some—more context to that, that you might be missing.”

He shrugged, still doubtful, and dropped the subject.

* * *

The phrase ‘it’s their loss’ danced around his head that night. It wasn’t true—it was for best that they didn’t want him around, that he stayed away, it was no _loss_.

But he wished it was true. That his presence was something that you would suffer without, even in a small way.

…That his presence was itself a good thing.

It was nice to have someone who believed that, even if it wasn’t himself.

* * *

Maeglin stayed for a year. It was a good place, and he had good company.

The more time he spent with Celebrimbor, the more little things that he noticed in his works. The attention to detail became care, if you knew what you were looking for, a care that bordered on affection for the blades and shoes and hammers that he made. And the clarity of his vision! When he set out to make something, it was made exactly as it should, and it was quite impressive to see. Not just the quality of the work, but the way the man himself unfolded as you became better at analysing his work.

Maeglin just—watched him, trying to learn and analyse and find those little insights that came from seeing how he sharpened a blade.

He was content with this, until he looked at himself a little too long, and realised what this was. This was not mere curiosity, or friendship, or interest in another person—

It was how he had felt about Idril. This was love. Stupid, foolish, doomed love. It was not the same as how he had felt about Idril, not exactly—but was there really a distinction between finding someone beautiful, and finding their work beautiful?

This couldn’t end well. Oh, he could make a up a story, where everything went perfectly and everything was sunshine and roses and gems that facetted right the first time—but it wasn’t the truth. He knew himself. He knew how this went with himself. He would be rejected, and then do something foolish—

And he knew how this had gone for the other elf who had fallen in love twice. At least Finwë’s first love had not ended as his had!

It was a terrible idea. He couldn’t say _exactly_ how this would go wrong, but it would. It was inevitable. It would all go wrong, and it would be all because of his feelings.

He tried to push them away. Tried and spare everyone the heartbreak and burning. He tried so hard—

\--but he didn’t leave.

He couldn’t leave. If he left, he would be on his own, and while it would be what he deserved… he couldn’t make himself pack up his things, and walk out the door with some excuse. He had tried, but the furthest he’d gotten was the edge of the village before his loneliness chased him back into Celebrimbor’s door.

He tried to ignore the feelings, then, if leaving was not an option.

* * *

A cool night breeze blew into the smithy, making the flames in the forge dance.

Maeglin wished he could say he was drunk. He wished he could say it was chemical alteration, poisoning, even, that had unbalanced him and made his brain go against his better judgment.

But no, he was just tired. Mere fatigue, from getting up at dawn to work, and continuing on past when the moon reached its peak. He was tired and distracted and giggly and so was Celebrimbor and his mind was wandering.

(The fact that it had been one year and one month since he’d left the Halls, and even longer since he’d seen his family, and longer than that since he’d _touched_ anyone, may have had something to do with it as well. Not that he’d admit it.)

His mind wandered to what it would feel like to kiss Celebrimbor. He wouldn’t do it, of course, it could only end poorly, but it was an interesting thought to entertain. What would it feel like? Warm, presumably, but that was as far as he could go. Nice, too.

…He wouldn’t do it. It would be a bad idea. But he was tired and lonely and skin hungry enough that he couldn’t quite _feel_ why it was a bad idea. He could recite the reasons it would be, if one asked, but they were distant, academic. Nothing that compared to the fire in his chest at the idea of kissing him, of touching him deliberately and with affection.

When Celebrimbor next walked past, rambling on about the advantages of different steel alloys and which would be best for their current project, Maeglin’s self-control slipped. The part of his brain that moved his body, that stupid, foolish part, won against that last vestige that could articulate why he shouldn’t do what he just did.

He leaned forward, and kissed Celebrimbor’s cheek. It was warm, reddened and heated by standing next to the forge, and covered in sweat, but even through that sheen, he could feel the soft roughness of his pores.

It was delightful.

And he shouldn’t have done that. Really _, really_ shouldn’t have done that.

“I’m sorry, I—“ he stammered.

Celebrimbor looked slightly baffled, but it was hard to tell in the low light, with him silhouetted by the forge. “I would have appreciated a warning, I might have been holding something hot, but I don’t see why you need to apologise.”

Maeglin flushed with embarrassment and anger at himself, and wished he at least had the control over his body to stop it from showing on his face. But tonight was not his night for self-control, apparently. “Do you know who I _am_?” he snapped.

Celebrimbor frowned. “Apparently I don’t?”

And no, that wasn’t how he meant it to sound, he made it sound arrogant, and that wasn’t right. “No, no, you do, you just—you just don’t know the whole of it,” he said. Saying that confession – that mere glancing blow of a confession— felt like carving out his chest with a dull knife.

“If you haven’t told me, then I don’t,” Celebrimbor said flatly. Maybe confused, maybe waiting for Maeglin to keep going, and hopefully not angry, but Maeglin did not know if he should hope for that—

Maeglin liked to think of himself as brave. That, whatever his other faults, he was not a coward. And that had been true for the rest of his life.

But now, facing down the possibility of explaining himself, and being cast out for it, cast out of the one place in Aman he felt safe and comfortable, or just making the point moot by fleeing into the night?

His body, and the animal part of his brain that controlled it, had already betrayed him once tonight. It betrayed him again.

He bolted out the door, the night air feeling cold and fresh and sharp compared to the coal-heat of the forge.

He sprinted down the street, sparing just one glance behind him.

Celebrimbor did not pursue him.

That was rejection enough.

He kept running, in the opposite direction of the Halls. If he could not go back, he would go forward, and that didn’t make much sense when one was fleeing into the night to get away from one’s past, but it was all that he _had_. That one glimmer of direction. He ran inland, away from the estuary, as mangrove swamp turned into rainforest trees.

He slowed down from a mad dash to a jog, refilling his lungs in gulping gasps.

Realisation trickled over him.

He was running into the _woods_ to be alone.

That was—fitting. Considering his lineage. The irony was unfortunate, but there were advantages to exiling oneself to the woods. He couldn’t hurt anyone. Well, no one but rabbits and tubers, but he did have to eat. That was his nature. But if any elf came into his woods, he could just—avoid them. No one would ever have to deal with the traitor of Gondolin again, and he would never have to deal with how they felt about that, or avoid telling them about it, or deal with them at all, or—

He slumped against a tree, the bark digging into his sweat soaked back.

It was the best idea he’d had in a while.

* * *

Maeglin stayed slumped against the tree trunk, curled up in a little ball of misery, for some time. He wasn’t sure how long. It didn’t matter. At some point, he’d have to get up, eat, drink. But right now, he didn’t have to, so he didn’t. He didn’t move, or sense. He only just about existed.

It was familiar. Not comforting, but familiar.

At some point, he heard footsteps. Heavy ones. Footsteps that stomped forward with purpose, deliberately cracked every piece of twig in between it and him, trying to draw attention to themselves.

He looked up. He didn’t want to, but what else was he going to do?

It was still dark. Or it had become dark again. He wasn’t sure. But he could still see the figure clearly. Celebrimbor, walking straight towards him, holding a lantern for light.

He should run away. Make good on what he tried to do.

…but if Celebrimbor wanted to find him, he wasn’t going to stop him. He didn’t really have the energy to. And well, it was his choice. He was allowed bad decisions, if he really insisted.

Celebrimbor thrust the lantern forward, trying to get a better look at him. “Are you alright?”

Maeglin squinted against the light, but didn’t respond.

He sat down cross legged next to him. “Okay,” he said, pushing past his lack of answering. “What is it that I don’t know?”

“I’m Maeglin,” he said, because Celebrimbor deserved the truth, and he had no way to dance around it. He’d tried for a year, and he’d run out of new steps. And his name, his ‘real’ name, was his quickest and best explanation.

Celebrimbor paused. “Is that it?” he said, incredulously.

Maeglin didn’t know how to react to that. It was so—matter of fact. “Do you not know what I did?” Because that was the only plausible explanation for such nonchalance. If he knew what he did—

“Betrayed Gondolin? Yes, I know. But I’m not particularly worried about you betraying anywhere to Morgoth _now_ —you’d have some major technical trouble with that.”

“I’m not sure you understand.” Because Celebrimbor was not worried about that, and that couldn’t be right. He had betrayed people to Morgoth, and one couldn’t come back from that. It was the worst thing he had done. It was the worst thing anyone could do. And he had no excuse, no explanation, not mitigating circumstance. “I was not—I was not wholly unwilling.” Oh, he’d been afraid of what Morgoth might do to him, when he was captured, but Morgoth didn’t _do_ anything. And besides that—if all Morgoth had done was offer him the city and Idril, with no threats, he would have done it anyway. He would have given up the city for the chance to rule it, with Idril as his queen, without any other incentive. He hadn’t needed that much convincing.

Celebrimbor looked out to where the horizon line would be if it wasn’t obscured by trees. “Do you know who I am?” he asked softly.

“You’re Celebrimbor. If there’s something else, I do not know.”

“I am Celebrimbor, known in Quenya as Tyelperinquar Curufinwion.”

He recognised the name now. The one who disowned his father, when his father fled after Finrod’s death. “Considering who your father is, turning against him is not fault, I would say—”

“No, it wasn’t. But it meant I lived through the First Age.” He paused. Thinking, but he kept his mind closed so that Maeglin could not tell quite what it was. Something about how to explain it, he guessed. (It was oddly comforting being near someone having a similar trouble.) “Meant I lived long enough to work with Gorthaur. Helped him gain power—and helped him destroy my city. Maybe not deliberately, but.” He shrugged.

“Oh.” Maeglin looked up at him. If what he was saying was true, then—they were similar. He should avoid him, run away again. …but he didn’t want to. He couldn’t believe Celebrimbor was particularly dangerous, or harmful, or— “…. Did you… know?” Because he was someone who would have some mitigating circumstance, who wouldn’t have done it deliberately.

He cocked his head to the side. “I could have done. There’s a point where ignorance is no excuse. And I may have been keeping myself ignorant, a bit. I didn’t want to ask questions, lest I had to cast anyone out, and the questions I did ask, I didn’t ask enough. And unlike you, I could make the same mistake again.”

Which was utter codswallop. Maeglin raised an eyebrow. “Do you intend to track him down and pledge your loyalty?” he said, trying not to sound incredibly doubtful—but not succeeding. Because he was doubtful, because he could not see any reason that Celebrimbor would. He’d have ‘technical trouble,’ as he would put it, on account of not being on the same continent and not having any reason to do it again.

He laughed, sharp and bitter. “No, no. But you—you could not find another Morgoth. And even if you did, I don’t believe you would give him anything.”

“You… you may be right,” he admitted. It seemed wrong to say as much, but it was true. He had absolutely zero intention to trade anything for rulership of a city, not least anything that could harm anyone else. He’d lesson about that. Belatedly.

“I’d still share my art and skill with anyone, with no question of who they are. I still wouldn’t ask questions that might lead me to having to cast someone out. And I’d say it has worked out for me, now. I shared my art with Gorthaur the Cruel, certainly, but I also shared and saw with my own eyes the art of the famed smith of Gondolin. That makes it worth it.” He smiled, softly

Which was an obvious attempt to butter him up, but he’d never known Celebrimbor to lie—so he’d take it. “I’d almost be offended if you weren’t comparing me to Sauron,” he said, half joking. Because it least it meant he knew he posed some danger. (And also, Sauron was known to be skilled, and if one _had to_ be compared to an evil Maia...)

“A smith’s works speaks clearly. I do not have to—look away from your work, or its implications. Your work is good.” From the way he stressed ‘good’, it sounded an awful lot like he was saying _he_ was good, if his works were.

“That’s—nice of you to say.” It was nice to hear, even if it was not strictly speaking true.

He looked at Maeglin, still smiling that bittersweet smile. “I wasn’t saying it be nice.”

Maeglin shrugged.

Celebrimbor stood up, and offered a hand to help him up.

He took it, bracing against Celebrimbor’s strong arm.

Celebrimbor looked at him for a second, evaluating him--?

He kissed Maeglin on the cheek. Quickly, with light pressure, but definitely there. “Turnabout is fair play,” he said, the smile growing warmer.

It was infectious. Despite the fatigue and the exhaustion of lack of sleep and having to explain who you are, he smiled.

They headed back to the smithy. Maeglin felt at some point he should have peeled off—he hadn’t fundamentally changed. He was still the traitor of Gondolin. But it didn’t bother Celebrimbor, and he seemed to want him around, and it felt wrong to take that choice away from him, to say he knew what was best for him.

And—he hadn’t been rejected. In either sense. Celebrimbor had said that he didn’t want to cast anyone out, and he had returned his affection, and what was Maeglin meant to do? Ignore that? How could he have ignored someone who knew who he was, and invited him back to his home? He couldn’t say no to that.

Maybe he should have. But he couldn’t.

Not when someone let him in.

(When they returned, dawn creeping over the horizon, Maeglin dared kiss Celebrimbor again. He had to—to check this was real, that this was real, that it wouldn’t shatter immediately.

It didn’t.)

* * *

Things went back to—saying they went back to normal would be inaccurate. To the outside world, it would have looked like things had returned to how they usually had been.

But Maeglin was more comfortable. That was different. He wasn’t working out how to dodge any question that came his way, not having to work at answering to a name that was not his usual. It felt strange, being able to relax. It felt fake, like at any minute it was all going to crumble around him, and Celebrimbor would come to his senses, and tell him to leave.

But until then, he was going to stay as long as he was able. He was going to take _advantage_ of this. (He’d said as much to Celebrimbor, when he’d asked him what he was thinking. Celebrimbor had laughed. “Feel free to take advantage! I can’t imagine anything concerning you could do with that, in Aman.”)

* * *

A week later, a rider in white came into the village, riding in the opposite direction from the Halls.

It had to be Aredhel. There was no one else who wore all white—even rode a white horse— and would have reason to come to this tiny village at the edge of Aman.

Maeglin had a split second to decide whether to hide, to flee— He’d hidden from her in the Halls. He wasn’t even sure she’d been there at the same time as him, but he had not wanted to see her, wanted neither her judgment nor pity, and Mandos made sure they did not cross paths.

And he still didn’t want judgment, or pity, or misguided sympathy, or whatever else. But he hadn’t seen her in so long. He hadn’t seen her for thousands of years—and he’d missed her. Every one of those years. Even if he wasn’t a very good son, he wanted to be with his mother. To have someone who would _care_ , no matter what he did, who he was-- And there was a chance that maybe her sympathy would not be misguided, if she was seeking him out deliberately. Or, if it was, that he could stand it.

She rode past, so distracted she forgot to look into the smithy’s door.

Celebrimbor walked up beside him, trying to read his expression. “Your mother?” Because he knew of the White Lady of the Noldor.

He nodded. “I—I want to see her. If I can.”

“Would you like company?”

While he could see her on his own— _should_ be able to see her on his own, he’d done it many times before, she was his mother after all—moral support would be appreciated. Especially from someone who at least partially understood—both the situation, and the concept of fraught families. “If you’re willing.”

They both walked out the front door.

Aredhel walked on her horse down the main street, scanning for him, but not looking anywhere but the street itself.

Maeglin called out to her. “Mother!” It sounded more hoarse and emotional than he had expected.

Celebrimbor squeezed his hand, a comforting gesture.

She turned around at the sound, recognition burning in her eyes. She dismounted in a hurry, and ran up to him, before catching herself and slowing her pace.

She looked shorter than he remembered. It didn’t make sense—he’d been his full height when she’d died, and taller than her, but somehow the child-memory of her being taller remained. She looked younger, too. That he could not tell whether it was from a new body, or if it was something else his memory had distorted. “My son,” she said, softly and full of wonder and a voice on the edge of tears, and not sure how to continue that sentence.

“Yes,” Maeglin said, because he was equally at a loss to respond. ( _She should be cursing me, saying I am the greatest evil she had ever met, that she regrets my birth, but she actually wants to see me--)_

“I am so glad to see you,” she said, regaining her voice, and throwing her arms around him.

He returned the embrace, stiff and awkward, but full of gladness to see her again.

Celebrimbor stood back a step, giving them space, but still obviously present.


End file.
